For his part, Mr Putin said Moscow’s hope, in pro­vid­ing a “pos­i­tive dy­namic in the fight­ing”, was that a “long term res­o­lu­tion can be achieved on the ba­sis of a po­lit­i­cal process with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of all po­lit­i­cal forces, eth­nic and reli­gious groups”.

The visit hap­pened on Tues­day evening, but was not an­nounced un­til Wed­nes­day af­ter Mr As­sad had re­turned to Da­m­as­cus.

In com­ments videoed and pub­lished by the Krem­lin, Mr Putin thanked Mr As­sad for com­ing de­spite the “dra­matic sit­u­a­tion” back home.

Mr Putin said Rus­sia was also con­cerned by the 4,000 peo­ple from the former Soviet Union be­lieved to be fight­ing in Syria. “We can­not per­mit them - once they get fight­ing ex­pe­ri­ence there and ide­o­log­i­cal train­ing - to turn up here in Rus­sia,” he said.